


A Promising Career In Espionage

by DictionaryWrites



Category: James Bond - All Media Types, Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Aftermath of Torture, Angst, F/F, Humor, Kissing, M/M, Plot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-02-28 12:29:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2732588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DictionaryWrites/pseuds/DictionaryWrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Q is a hacker, and in all truth, legality aside, he just wants to keep getting on with his work. Unfortunately, he steps too near the toes of certain players in a game he’s never had to care about before. Written for the 00Q Reverse Bang.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Promising Career In Espionage

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/gifts).



> Written for the 00Q Reverse Bang. I had so much fun writing this, and I was ever so lucky to be paired with such a skilled artist as beili! I'm honestly so pleased with how this worked out. 
> 
> I have not embedded beili's tremendous art pieces in the fic in order to make it easier to read. There are two links in the space of the fic, but she'll be posting hers as a related work, so please remember to go have a look!

It's six minutes past three in the morning. The birds will be singing soon enough – oddly, he'd always thought that in the city one wouldn't hear the birds so loudly, so clearly come the morning light, but even in the bustle of London one can hear them. Something could be made of that, he supposes, of nature's triumph despite the run of man and man's ensuing technology, but such ideas are hardly his priority.

After all, of the two, it's not with nature that Q's power lies.

The light in the room is dim, because he doesn't see the sense in putting on the lights when his screens are clearly backlit and he can touch-type in the dark; the bare light that filters in through the window and its shoddy blinds is from the moon, a thin crescent in the sky. The light is frail and weak, but it will be replaced soon enough.

Q is not paying attention to the moonlight, the time, or the birds singing outside.

His gaze is focused on the single monitor in front of him – others run with one program or another, but none of them are crucial in the way this one is. It's a fairly simple process, and he's working through once and once again, typing rapidly. Occasionally he'll scroll back up and check his work, but it's not truly necessary: this comes to Q as naturally as breathing. A code for trade – not a commission, for that always lends the idea that Q is ready to be employed, but a trade.

One must love the bartering system in its new form of modernity: Q inserts a few runs of crucial code and hides them until they can do their damage and Q is rewarded with the carefully transferred deeds to a property in Hackney.

Not much to be _thought_ of, out of context, but Q knows very well what he'll find there, and how he might use it.

**ENTER**

He looks down at the key, larger than the others on the board, and his lip twitches before he taps it. A flicker comes across the screen of his second monitor; the site's proper place. It's not even anything _important_ – Jenko's Oil, some American company, but Q had been asked to hide a few pop-ups and a line or two of irritating script, and he has done his job.

He drops the laptop shut, then, and he moves to stand. He pulls on his coat – it's a big thing, an ugly green parka with too large a collar, but he loves it all the same – and leans to pick up his satchel. The door slams shut of its own accord, specially weighted to do so, and he begins to walk down the stairs. It's cold in the stairwell just like it always is, but he doesn't care much – the lift always affects him with too much _trepidation,_ and it's automatic by now to shove his hands in his pockets for the cold.

It's not that he's claustrophobic, as such. It's not the _size_ of the space that bothers him so much as it is the idea of being confined there, vulnerable, and while the statistics _are_ in his favour... Well. The idea of being splattered against the top of an elevator that had fallen too fast to the ground appeals to him not at all.

He walks rapidly down the street; he's dressed simply bar the coat, in skinny jeans, a pair of brown leather boots, a jumper underneath. The glasses, the skinny figure, thick beard and the unobtrusive but common fashion lets him go unnoticed in most places, and that's really what he wants: no attention.

Q doesn't even go by his own _name_ any more, Christ knows he doesn't need some person's attention in the street. People aside, he doesn't want any _policemen's_ attention either.

The Tesco is one of the 24 Hour deals, and he winces upon entering: so _bright._ Christ, he hates supermarkets. He grasps at a trolley all the same, though, and with that it's the weekly shop, perfectly regular except for being conducted at three in the morning; focus on fruits and nuts, a bottle of skimmed almond milk, tea bags, pasta, a few cans of one thing or another.

“Going on a meat fast, eh?” God, what a hideously _chipper_ young woman. Q glances up from his wallet, looking at her with a slight frown; she's blonde, pretty enough, but that's too much cheer for a brightly lit supermarket at nearly four. A glance in the reflection of one of the laminated signs behind her reveal that her feet are dangling off her chair, and he wonders how tall she must be. Four ten? Four eleven? An even five feet?

“Vegan.” Q replies shortly, and he refuses her plastic bags, setting out two fabric ones from the satchel.

“Oh, about animal cruelty?” How can a woman sound so _happy_ whilst asking about animal cruelty? It must be forced; that sort of attitude cannot be _real._ Is the correlation between short people and cheeriness a legitimate one, or has he just got a disproportionate idea from television? Now _that's_ a question. One he'd rather answer than this one.

“It's an environmental concern.” Q says, and he speaks as politely as he can, but her voice – and a Scouse accent to boot, as if that late-night chipper _happiness_ couldn't be more annoying – is grating through his head. He needs to _sleep_. Her eyes are lingering on his face, flickering over the dark hair on his cheeks, and he's so _done_ with it.

“Oh, th-” He doesn't feel bad about cutting her off: he sees her glance drop to his hip as he reaches across the till for a leaflet and his shirt and jumper ride up, the open parka not doing _quite_ enough to hide his naked skin. Q barely restrains himself from rolling his eyes.

“Here.” The word is firm as he puts the two notes forwards – two twenty pound notes are sufficient, and he drops half of his change into a box to fund guide dogs to spare having to force it all into his too-skinny pocket again.

Q is quick about walking back: he moves straight to the kitchen, unpacking all his groceries. Recycling men will be in the next morning, so once he's up he'll have to lay out his bags ready to be taken dow-

Q's train of thought stops short. He hovers in the door to his living room, staring at his screens. When usually, they ought be displaying the website, his desktop, BBC One on mute and subtitled respectively, they were all on a black screen.

There hadn't been a power cut to his awareness, and they ran from separate systems, so it wasn't a failure of a hard drive. They couldn't be overheated, or he'd hear their fans. System crash?

He steps forwards perfunctorily and lifts the lid of his laptop.

Black screen, waiting for input, and then-

**do you always do your shopping this late at night?_**

Q jolts backwards, staring at the screen with eyes wide behind his glasses for a few moments; the marker at the end of the text blinks into sight, then out of sight, into sight, then out of sight. He taps ESC, and nothing happens.

**oh come on do just tell me_**

His heart has never beat so fast in his chest. He feels sick, and his head is reeling, and oh, _Christ_ , he's going to be murdered tonight.

CTRL+ALT+DEL

**why don't you try ALT+TAB next_**

**if you can't get rid of me maybe you can get back to your desktop_**

Q jabs his thumb against the power button, holding it down with vehemence; the screen flickers, as do the lights indicating power on the laptop, but it doesn't shut down. Q turns rapidly pale, and his fingers are _shaking_ and cold, and oh, shit, oh _shit_ -

**you're pretty when you're terrified._**

Q drops his laptop shut, but the text just appears on the other three monitors instead.

**so pretty. you really should get out more – it's a shame people don't get to see that face_**

Q crosses the room and, in one sharp movement, drags the extension lead out of the socket: as one, the screens all go dead, and the hum of hard drives slowly drops to silence. He stands there for a second or two, in the dead silence of the room, and then he kicks of his boots before dropping his clothes aside and slipping into bed.

It takes him an age to go to sleep, tossing and turning in his bed – who in the Christ had that been? Obviously someone had managed to trace his IP from something or other, and to get into his system like that surely they'd planted a USB in his PC, or _something_ -

Q lies on his back, staring straight up at the ceiling, and he swallows.

_Christ._

\---

When he wakes up, he slides tiredly out of bed, automatically dipping down and pressing the power button on his laptop, watching it spark its own systems and the other to life with the regular satisfaction, but then he remembers, and his head whips to the side.

The extension lead is in its socket again; he must have plugged it back in in the middle of the night. He must have. Or it was just- well, it was probably a nightmare. He'd come back from Tesco _exhausted_ , after all; he'd just slipped off and then had a too-realistic dream.

Yes, that-

“You _are_ very pretty, you know. Even with that _beard._ ” Q doesn't know how to fight people. He's naked in the middle of his too-cold flat and he needs clothes and he needs to know how to _fight_ people. It's always been a background thought, the idea of learning some sort of self-defence, but _background_ had been the emphasis. “Turn around.”

Q does, slowly, and he looks at the other man with a wide-eyed uncertainty. He leans and grabs at a sheet, wrapping it around himself, but the other doesn't object: he's older than Q, blond-haired, broad, muscular. He'd be attractive, Q supposes, if he weren't in Q's flat unasked and uninvited, having intimidated him via black-screen IM the night before.

“Are you going to kill me?” Q asks, shortly, and the words come out a little too high and a little too low, choked and awkward. A pause, and then the man holds out a cup of glorious, steaming heat.

“Earl Gray, no sugar, smidge of milk. First cup.” The man says easily, smoothly, and Q wonders desperately if this is some sort of sick dream – Christ, why is this man _here_? Q doesn't go in for the big stuff, doesn't hack big banks or link to terrorists, doesn't- doesn't do anything that could get him _killed_.

“ _What_?” What has he done recently that could lead to a well-dressed assassin? _Nothing._ Nothing; it had all been small games or money hacks or pop-ups. Nothing _concrete_ , nothing _big_ or governmental or political or even linked to a pressure group, for Christ's sake.

“Your tea. It's one PM – time for your first cup of tea.” This must be some sort of sick game. This man is like Jigsaw, bloody _Jigsaw._

“If you were planning on poisoning me, I wouldn't suggest it. I've a very sensitive gag reflex.” Q manages to say, but the words come out bitten for how hard he's clenching his jaw – of course, it's either that or letting his teeth chatter in absolute _terror._

“Liar.” The older man _purrs_ the words, and he steps forwards, slow, easy sloping steps that make no noise at all on Q's carpet. He wears expensive shoes. “I've seen you go _out_ , Q: I'm not sure I believe you have a gag reflex at all.”

Q takes a step back. His cheeks don't colour, but he wraps the sheet just a little tighter around himself. He understands the implication in that – it can be said that Q does _indulge_ in someone now and then, and if this guy has been keeping an _eye_ on him-

His throat feels thickly laden.

“Come now. I'm not going to _rape_ you.” The man says, and he holds the mug out. He's taller than Q, quite a bit taller, and broader, and the fact that he is alone with this tall, broad man, naked but for a sheet and enduring cracks about his sexual activity makes him _uncomfortable._ “Take it.” The words are crisp, sharp.

“Who are you?” Q asks.

“Take the cup.” The blond speaks with emphasis on every word, and they cut through his nerve with their viciousness.So he does, but his hands are shaking and he has to try very hard to ensure he doesn't drip any of it on the carpet. “Drink.” Q swallows hard, and he's _terrified_ , Christ, he's never been scared so shitless in his _life._

He takes a sip, and the other man _grins._

“Bond.” He says; is his name supposed to be a reward for having obeyed an order? Q feels light-headed. “James Bond.”

“What did you put in this?” Q asks, tongue heavy, lips tingling, and then he's falling backwards, vision darkening at the edges; the last thing he remembers is the brush of warm fingers against his own as Bond catches the mug and ensures it doesn't fall down with him.

\---

Q wakes in bed, head pounding, _aching._ He stumbles into the shower, and he lies under the spray with its lack of sufficient water pressure, enjoying the bare _heat_ on his skin. Christ. What- _what_ is going on?

He feels sick. He ought go to the police – the man had just _come_ into his flat, and drugged him, and then-

What? What had been the _point_?

“James Bond.” Q tastes the words on his tongue, frowning. He'd had a deep voice, low in a way that had sent _shivers_ through him, but he won't think about that now: James Bond.

He Googles the name, but nothing comes up – there are millions of Jameses, plenty of _Bonds_ , and a few Jimmy, Jim and James Bonds here and there. There's even a James Bond who'd died in service a year or so ago and worn expensive suits, but none of them are _that_ man.Q feels sick, but then he gets an email – a new job.

And the police wouldn't believe him. Christ, why should they believe him? And what would he say? Oh, yes, I _do_ run an illicitly run and completely illegal business from my home, PC DuCochon, but I swear I didn't do _any_ illegal things to deserve _this_ sort of attention.

So, he gets to work, and tries to forget about it; this proves, as one might think, completely impossible.

\---

It's when Q finally goes to the property in Hackney that it happens again. He's picking through lockers to find his money – he has several thousand pounds so far, but there ought be two thousand more – when a hand touches flat against his back, and then he's flipped, pinned against the make-shift metal wall.

He looks up at Bond, ruffled with his jumper pushed up about his neck, gasping just a little.

Bond lets him go, and then he leans back, brushing off his sleeves in a casual fashion. “Who _are_ you?” Q snaps out, because he's _done_ being polite on pain of death. The man hadn't _killed_ him yet, after all, and though Q's heart is beating fast as that of a mouse, he's quite out of patience. “You _drugged_ me!”

“Of course I did. It seemed nicer than punching your lights out.” Bond says, and he adjusts his cuffs; in the dim, dank room with its torn apart furniture and ripped up brick walls, he looks out of place. That suit is _Gucci._ “And I told you who I am.”

“Oh, so you don't exist then.” Q says irritably, and Bond shrugs.

“You could say that.” He looks around, thoughtful, and he takes a few casual steps forward. “I don't suppose this place is for sale?” Q stares at him.

“What?”

“This building. I don't suppose it's for _sale._ ” Bond draws out the sibilance, the “s” hissing between his tongue and his teeth.

“No, it's not.” Q mutters, and then he grasps at the rest of his money, shouldering his bag before moving to leave.

“Oh, Q.” Bond calls after him, and he looks back. “Do be _careful_ getting home.” Q rushes to leave the building, and he gets into his flat as fast as he can, throwing the door shut behind him. He drops his bag on the floor and lets his back touch the door, and then slowly, he slides down, until he hits the ground and the back of his head tilts to the wood.

Christ, what has he gotten himself into? Who _is_ that man?

"Shit." He mutters, putting his head in his hands. "Shit, shit, _shit._ "

\---

He wakes at half six in the evening to a cup of tea, steaming at his bedside. He stares at it for a few long moments, recognizing his mug even through the morning (is it weird that he still calls it morning when his mornings and evenings are reversed?) blur of not having his glasses on. He's slept in very _late_ , and he feels strange, light-headed and heavy of body.

“This one's not drugged too, I hope?” He speaks into the empty room behind him, unwilling to look. Bond is like the _bogeyman_ one doesn't want to actually check for in the middle of the night.

Initially, there's silence, and Q feels he might be slipping. No one there, no one – he's just thinking himself in circles, and talking to people that aren't there, mistrusting mugs of tea he probably made for himself and then forgot about twenty minutes ago-

“No. I am _sorry_ about that. I promise: honest regret.” Bond's voice is low, quiet. It _sounds_ somewhat regretful, but that means nothing. Q grasps for his glasses and pulls them on, and then he moves to sit up, regarding the other man. He sits in Q's chair, but it's not big and comfortable for him in the way it is for Q; it seems to fit his body perfectly. Beneath Bond's designer suit, that battered reclining office chair looks almost _CEO_ -worthy.

Q's laptop is on Bond's knees, and his fingers tap absently across the keys. Q worries for a moment, and then sees in one of the other monitors that the man is playing Minesweeper.

“There's something wrong with you.” Q says, feeling sudden nausea punch him in the gut, and he stands from bed with little care for the morning cold or that he's undressed before Bond can offer some sort of witty retort: he runs straight to the bathroom and feels his gag reflex pull in his throat.

He vomits until his stomach feels empty, and it's only then that he brushes his teeth, staggering back to his room.

“What, still here? Not going to dematerialize this time? What are you anyway, some sort of shoddy _ghost_?” He snaps the words, beginning to pull on a pair of thick flannel pyjamas and kick his feet irritably into a pair of slippers. He pulls a thick jumper on after that, intent on enjoying comforting clothes if the other man might shoot him at any moment. Bond watches him curiously.

“You're not far off, actually.” He says, and the worst thing is the cadence of his voice isn't actually all that _unpleasant_ , and it's nice to the ear, full of innuendo-laced promises, which Q does _not_ appreciate at this particular moment in time. “You're very clever, aren't you?”

“Oh, they _all_ said that when I was at school.” Q retorts sarcastically, and he grasps his tea from the side, pulling it to his lips and taking a sip. If there are more sleeping pills, well, so be it. It tastes good though; perfectly brewed to Q's liking, with just the right amount of milk. Bond has probably watched him brew tea through his window sixteen times, of course, so why should he be surprised at a decent cup of tea?

“I'm sure they did.” Q turns to look at him. Bond looks comfortably dishevelled, leaning back in Q's chair. He wears a tie but it's loosely knotted at the centre of his chest, and his collar is splayed slightly; his legs are spread very wide indeed. Q does his best not to let his gaze linger on the slight bulge under the expensive fabric. The laptop has been set aside. There is a long and discomfiting silence, one that hangs and hangs in the air as if growing thicker every moment, but Q cannot bring himself to make it lift, his lips frozen, his throat full of some air-made gag. And then, finally, finally cutting through the silence with all the subtlety of a blunt object through an ambassador's rib cage: “You _are_ pretty, you know.”

Q throws the mug at him.

It misses the man himself, shattering on the side of the chair, and the tea soaks into the carpet; it doesn't touch his computer set up because Bond had rolled the recliner forwards, presumably to better intimidate him in it. Bond stares at him owlishly for a moment or two, glancing at the shattered pieces of ceramic and then at the hacker himself.

“Didn't _expect_ that from the _pretty_ boy, did you?” Q bites out, and Bond _smiles_ , actually _smiles_ at him.

“No.” Bond says, in a good-natured tone, as if they're friends and it had been barely a prank. “I didn't. That sort of overarm could make a cricket player proud, you know. Did you ever _play_ cricket, Q?” Q feels another twist of nausea, and he feels his cheeks suddenly get heavy and hot, his eyes burning as if he might begin to cry.

“ _Get out._ ” He hisses, but he doesn't expect the other man to actually _do_ it, and Bond makes no movement to obey. He does, however, lean forwards in his seat. Q realizes with some twinge of extra horror that there is tea soaking into his trouser leg, and he oughtn't feel guilty about that but it _terrifies_ him.

“Go back to bed.” Bond says quietly. “I'll clean this up.”

“ _I'll_ clean it up. Out!” Q all but thunders the words, and the older man arches a graceful brow, but then he stands, and he leaves Q's apartment. The sound of the latch closing on his door is ridiculously loud, echoing through his little flat with far more volume than it had any right to possess.

Q is left hovering at the end of the bed, staring at the pieces of his mug and the tea in the carpet and on the brown leather of his chair, dripping from the surface and from the plastic arm onto the ground.

He walks like a ghost into the other room, picking at kitchen roll and moving to dab it up, collecting the shattered pieces of plain blue ceramic and setting them aside. He cleans it up as he can then, throwing the kitchen roll wet and soaked in brown into the bin before moving to settle in his seat again.

It feels weighted, as if it remembers the other man seated in it, and Q _tuts._

**To: q, FW: nu job From: VespaCars, 9:49AM**

Q open the email, and he glances over the instructions. A _government_ site, this time, but nothing especially important or of high risk there; a screamer to be placed on six or seven instructional pages, set to replace the “helpful” looped videos.

Q watches the laughing skull on his screen, lips twisting slightly, and glances at the end of the email.

_Don't get caught with your hand in the cookie jar._

Q thinks of the pieces of his mug, smashed and dropped into the bin, and begins to write a script.

\---

**i'm sorry_**

Q hadn't been working. He'd been curled in his quilt with his mug nursed in his hands, taking the occasional lazy sip or one of the cookies he'd laid out on the tray table beside him, watching some sort of _ridiculously_ predictable procedural show. It was CSI, or Law and Order, or- one of them.

The message comes up on one of his second screens, and Q glances at it, almost impassively. He still feels anxious about it, Christ, how _couldn't_ he be worried where James Bond is concerned? But he's tired, and he doesn't _want_ to play a game right now.

**you need to stop taking jobs from vespacars_**

Q dips his cookie into his tea before taking a bite from it, enjoying the way the hot drink softens it for the sake of his mouth.

**shan't call you pretty anymore if you don't turn those eyes on me._**

It's not comfortable to ignore it. It feels strange when he knows Bond can see him, like there's someone _watching_ him and he's physically ignoring them; it feels _childish._ He sets his tea on the tray table, picks up his laptop and types back. The cop show continues on. unimpeded by his terrible life decisions.

***Any more._**

**there it is._**

The little underscore flashes on the screen after the text, repeating again and again, impatiently. Q doesn't know what to type, and so he just stares it, stares at the flashing symbol for ages on end. Flash up, disappear, flash up, disappear...

Q glances, and although the audio of the detective program is still on, tense music implying the killer is perhaps on screen, the screen shows muted Danger Mouse, and Q laughs a little despite himself, bemused and _utterly_ done with it all.

**Who are you?_**

Q taps in the words with confidence enough behind them, needing _some_ sort of answer, wanting to know _why._ The tense music and terrible dialogue cuts short.

“I'll get you, Danger Mouse!” rumbles the toad on screen, voice tinny where it exits Q's speakers, and he watches the animation. It's old-fashioned, ridiculous, quite OTT but _good_. Stupid, inane, and _very_ good.

Q takes a sip of his tea.

**Aren't you going to answer?_**

**not if you ask the wrong question_**

Q watches the letters as they crop up across the screen, and he feels confused, and tired, and like pulling the sheets over his head and just going to _sleep_ to get away from it all.

**What's the right question?_**

No response, but Danger Mouse cuts out abruptly, and BBC One opens up. Bond, controlling one of Q's spare monitors from God knows how far away, begins to browse tech news.

**Bond._**

**q..._**

The light flickers above him, on and off, and then his bedside lamp does the same. They begin to flick up a rhythm, on and off, the shittiest light show a man can not pay for and still get delivered against his will.

**Ask again._**

**What do I ask?_**

**anything you like_**

**Who are you?_**

**james bond_**

**But that do_**

He's cut short as he's typing, and on all the screens burst fireworks, but he has no _program_ for that – it's like they're made from the image of the desktop and the BBC site themselves, dragging their colour through the pixels of each screen.

Q taps a key, but it doesn't work. He tries each one in turn, and when one _does_ work, he's taken aback.

**w_**

It just sits there. Q taps the A. No response. O. U. I. E. No response.

 **bet you're good at scrabble._** says Bond, on the third monitor as he continues to play fingerpaint with the other two. He always responds so _fast:_ Q can't help but wonder how many characters he can type per minute.

Q taps H.

**wh_**

He taps the O. Nothing. Q lets out a short, irritated sound, and considers throwing the laptop completely aside. He taps the A.

**wha_**

It takes him a while; of course it does. But then he has it.

**what are you?_**

**What a good question._** comes the almost immediate response as soon as he adds the question mark, and Q rolls his eyes.

“Idiot.” He mutters under his breath, and a YouTube clip opens on the two monitors Bond had been playing with, stretched and separated ridiculously across two screens: a little girl blowing a raspberry. “An idiot who's _good_ at this.” Q offers, closing the laptop and setting it aside, given that he can apparently just talk aloud and Bond will hear him anyway.

**Why don't you just have your heating on all the time_**

Q frowns. He hadn't even realized he'd huddled a little more in his quilt, and he tuts. “I don't need it on all the time. I'd be wrapped in my quilt anyway, so there's no sense turning the heating on. Besides, it's not like I'd have it on it while I _slept._ ”

**why not?_**

“Because it's- I'd be _asleep._ It's not like I'd know how hot it was!”

**but you'd be comfortable when you got up?_**

“It's a _waste._ ”

**you've got money_**

“It's not about _money_ , Bond, and anyway, you were telling me what you _are_.” Q's tone turns a little mocking as he speaks, beginning to lose patience. “Other than a twat, I suppose.” He wrenches his head around as the door opens, and the man steps in.

Of course he does. Why wouldn't he?

 _Is_ this just some sort of ridiculous dream?

“Hello, Q.” Bond purrs in his low voice, irritatingly, and he slips behind Q's chair, hand resting on the back of it. Q has the impression that if he were standing, Bond's hand would have settled on his lower back instead, silently possessive, and the idea electrifies and _worries_ him.

If Bond's hand were there, then his mouth would be against Q's ear, breath hot.

“Stalker?” Q asks.

“Pardon?”

“Is _stalker_ what you are?” Q asks, stiffly.

“Oh, arguably. I was going to say...” Bond is suddenly down and leaning against him, and his breath _isn't_ hot against Q's jaw: he can hardly feel it against the dark hair growing there, although he hears the intake and out take through his nose. “ _Agent._ ”

“Agent?”

“MI6.”

“MI- _what?”_

“You have been a _very_ naughty boy.” Bond murmurs, and then he stands again, arms crossing over his chest. He looks down at Q, and Q is wearing long pyjamas and huddled in his quilt, and Bond is _looking_ at him so- so-

“What?”

“I. Work. At. MI6.”

“Which is-”

“In the government. You know, like MI5, but more _fun._ ” Bond murmurs, and Q gets the idea that he's promising some danger or other, because the sounds are rolling so lowly and so deeply off his tongue. Q presses his legs together under the duvet. Bond unbuttons his blazer and opens it up, but Q sees nothing at his hip. “Tut. Up here.” Q glances, and then his lips part as he sees the twin holsters under the other man's arms.

“What are those?”

“Berettas.” Bond says neatly. He removes a box from a pocket, a box of cigars, and moves to take one out, but then he looks to Q, silently asking permission. The hacker shakes his head, sternly, and Bond lets out a put-upon sigh, but drops them back out of sight all the same. “They're not exactly standard issue, certainly, but I so love their _kick._ ”

“You like it when they kick?” Q regrets it as soon as he's said it. Innuendo is a _fun_ game, usually, but not with this man. _Definitely_ not with this man. Bond gracefully arches an eyebrow, regarding Q with his lips pressed together, in apparent good humours.

“And better when they scratch.” Red heat begins to pool behind Q's cheeks. Bond takes a deliberate step forwards, dragging his foot on the carpet, and then another, and then another. Q is struck with a vivid image of one of those Berettas being trailed across his jaw, the muzzle cold against his cheek. Oh, Q would shave _just_ for that.

He stares up at Bond, doing his best not to swallow, and Bond looks down at him impassively. “Stop taking the jobs from Vesper.” He makes it sound like Vesper is a _person_ , and- well, they are, of course, but he makes Vesper on its own sound like a name.

“Why?” VespaCars, Vesper. It could be, he supposes.

“Because I _said_ so.” Bond's hands are either side of Q's seat, and his heart is pounding, and he wonders if Bond is going to kill him this time. But- well. That absent wonder doesn't stop him making stupid requests.

“So? I don't see a badge.” Bond laughs, and then he leans forwards, leans so close that his nose is against Q's own. Q _can_ feel his breath now, slightly warm on his own lips, and he's half aware that he's getting _hard_ in his pyjamas, hard on top of being nauseous and scared and a little bit faint.

Bond looks into his eyes, and his eyes are so bloody _blue,_ damn them, as inhuman as anything with a shining _light_ to their colour, a glow, almost. “Q.” He says very quietly, deliberately. “I should hate to have to kill you after all our _time_ together. Say no to the next job.”

“I can't just say _no.”_ Q says, half-breathless. “I can't. I'd have to give a reason.”

“Say you're on two weeks' holiday.”

“I don't take holidays.” is the quick retort, and Bond looks at him, amused.

“No.” He agrees. “Nor do I.” He laughs, then, as if he's made some sort of private joke only he understands, and then his hand comes up, cupping the left side of Q's cheek. Q lets out a harsh, breathy noise at that despite himself, and Bond draws his hand back immediately, letting out a quieting coo he supposes is meant to comfort. “Sorry.” Bond murmurs quietly, and he stands back again, putting himself at a professional distance. “You're warm, that's all.”

“Hot, some say.” is what Q would say if he could work up the courage to spit out another innuendo, but he can't quite manage to pluck himself together. Instead, he says, “I'll say I'm visiting family for two weeks.”

“An idea.” Bond murmurs, and then he moves to leave.

“Bond.” The agent - “agent”, certainly – turns, and he regards Q with his eyebrows raised, expectant. “That property in Hackney-”

“Too late.” Bond says, simply and with a business-like haste to it.

“Pardon?” Q asks, head tilting.

“It's too late to offer me the property now. Keep it.” And then he goes, leaving Q in his bedroom, with blank screens and a confused expression on his face.

**– [One of Beili's pieces is intended to go here here.[Open this link in a new tab](http://s6.postimg.org/y85m3uldt/00_Q_RB_promising_career2.jpg) if you'd like to see.]**

When Q gets up, he doesn't turn on his laptop. He moves to get dressed, and he catches an appropriate amount of money for the journey in his wallet. He packs little; his phone, three changes of clothes, his slippers, some pyjamas. After that, he turns down the thermostat in his fridge and ensures nothing perishable is left inside before moving to unplug his appliances, his computer and his monitors, and the speaker system in the kitchen.

It's only twenty past one in the afternoon when he opens his door, and he stops short, looking down at his doorstep.

The package is small, wrapped in brown paper and tied with white string; it's old fashioned in a darling sort of way, like something Paddington Bear might be gifted, and Q leans to pick it up, regarding it with a small, interested frown. He glances each way up the corridor, seeing no one, and drops his satchel on the floor beside the door, taking the package inside.

It could be a _bomb_ , he supposes whimsically, thinking of Agent James Bond of MI6, but he doubts it by the weight. He sets it on his kitchen counter, catches the right end of the bow, and pulls, letting the string fall loosely either side. It's easy enough to rip the brown paper from the box, and inside--

Q smiles.

It's a Scrabble mug, apparently, plain white but for the black Scrabble Q on its side, and the 10 point mark at its right corner.

“Thank you, Bond.” He murmurs, almost to himself, and then he pushes it aside to use when he gets home, dropping the paper and leftover string into the paper recycle as he leaves the apartment properly this time. The lift is open as he goes down the corner, which is odd, given that no one is to be seen but for Q himself.

He hovers for a second, staring into that metal box. The floor is tiled, but the tiles have long-since lost the white colour they used to have, stained as they are with six or seven new sorts of brown and yellow: Q doubts it will be cleaned before next year. The sides of the damn thing are mirrored, as if to create the illusion that it _isn't_ a tiny metal box.

As he watches, the elevator gives a sharp lurch, and Q flinches, running quickly towards the stairs with little care for dignity or outward appearances: he just wants to be away from that _bloody_ thing.

–

It's a week later that he returns home.

He's glad to see his mother, now and then, and it's nice to be with her, but all the same-

No internet, no computers, no _tech_. She only had digital _television_ after a lot of um-ing and ah-ing, and Q had no wish to go through the same difficult process to convince her of getting Wi-Fi. Let alone her constant _wittering_ about how much she hates the beard – he'd hate to have that over Skype as well. Q chuckles to himself as he gets inside, pushing the door open, and then he shuts it.

“Honey, I'm home!” He calls to the empty flat, utilizing an American accent even _he_ knows is more than awful, and then he moves into the kitchen, turning the fridge's thermostat back to usual, plugging everything back in. He sets a carton of almond milk on the side, having bought some in the train station before walking back, and now he pours a little in the base of his new mug, flicking the kettle on.

He is in a good mood, and he moves quickly enough into the other room, plugging in his computer before turning it on.

“Brew a second while you're at it. Sugar, no milk.” Bond says suddenly from the counter beside him, and Q laughs, moving to pick one of the ugly Princess Diana mugs from the cupboard. Bond pulls a face, and Q looks at him for a moment before taking one with Elizabeth II on it instead.

Bond grins.

“Had you pegged for a monarchist.” Q mutters, and he drops teabags into both.

He realizes as he pours the boiling water from the kettle that he is brewing tea for his stalker, who has just broken into the house, and who believes himself to be an MI6 agent.

Oh, Christ.

“Brought a badge today.” Bond says, and he flicks it across the counter to him. “Had to get that done specially, you know. We don't carry badges.”

“Doesn't mean anything then, does it?” Q retorts, pushing it back, and Bond looks at him with an indulgently amused little grin on his face.

“Nice holiday?”

“You couldn't find where I was, could you?” Q asks, amused at the thought of Bond trying to, and the older man presses his lips together. He looks slightly _irritated,_ and something about that is more than satisfying. “Little village. Buses don't have cameras, streets don't have cameras, mum doesn't have web access.” Bond looks _slightly_ lifted of spirit. Q pushes the mug of new tea to him, and Bond takes it, though he doesn't yet sip from it. Q thinks about kissing him, and then pushes the idea away.

Christ. Christ, he's _cracking_ here, he should- he should call the _police_ -

“Do you like your new mug?”

“I do.” Q admits, sipping from it and enjoying the taste of the Earl Gray. His mother always _had_ been a woman for PG Tips, and the lack had been _astonishing,_ especially on top of suddenly having to sleep at night and be awake in the day time. “Thank you. The wrapping was nice, too. Very 70s Marks and Sparks.”

Bond is _scowling_ at him. Q looks at him perplexedly, because he looks distinctly upset. “What?”

“Nothing.” Bond mutters, and he takes a sip of his drink. “You don't have a television.”

“I'm glad you've noticed that while breaking into my flat once again.” Q says dryly. “I _do_ pay my television license.” He doesn't know why he's defensive about it – he's never really seen the point in getting a television when he could get so much more from using his computer, given the faffing with HDMI cables it would involve.

“Oh, you hack into government websites for a living, but you _do_ pay your TV license.” Q's lips twitch.

“Well, of course.” He agrees; for once, he realizes, he doesn't feel so worried about James Bond in front of him. Is that a good thing, or an example of false security? Bond looks at him for a few moments, and his hand comes up, hovering for a few seconds in the air before he clenches it into a fist and puts it firmly at his side again.

“I'm sorry, I just haven't- I've been isolated, for a while.”

“In your cupboard at MI6?” Q teases, but Bond nods, quite seriously, with as charming a grin as he can.

“Yes. I'll see you this week.” And then he turns on his heel, leaving through the front door. Q picks up the mug he'd left, and then blinks at it, perplexed; for all Bond had taken sips, it remains full, still warm in his hand.

He frowns, confused, and begins to pour the excess into the sink.

\---

**To: q, Wish to hire again From: VespaCars, 7:42AM  
** To: q, FW: Wish to hire again From: VespaCars, 19:20PM  
To: q, IMPATIENT From: VespaCars, 23:19PM 

Q stares at his laptop screen, uncertain for a few moments when he finally glances at his emails. He'd put it off, somewhat unsure as to whether Vesper would be emailing as soon as he got back. Apparently Vesper was _very_ eager indeed to catch his services once more.

His fingers hover over the keys, and he considers penning a quick reply, a small refusal. Yes, that's an idea; just a quick email to say he wouldn't be taking any emails from VespaCars in particular, because-

Well.

Because the man from MI6 had said so.

_Shit._

The knocks are clear on his flat door, and he frowns, cautiously moving to stand. Who in the bloody Hell was that? Not Bond. Bond wouldn't _knock_. He'd just _come in._ Q moves to stand, slowly, and wishes he had some sort of keyhole thing to look through, like the Americans have, or a _window._

And then he catches the door handle and pulls the door open.

“Oh.” Q says. She smiles at him, her eyebrows raising slightly, and Q isn't really certain what to say. “I-”

“Gwyn McNeil?” Q flushes a deep red.

“ _No_ , it's-”

“Q.” She supplies, and Q gives a short nod of his head, somewhat irritated.

“Who are _you_?” Q asks, and if he spits the words out a bit, well, he has the _right_ to be a tad rude.

“Oh, I know. Such a shame to have a pretty girl on your doorstep out of the blue.”

“I don't _like_ pretty girls, and I don't have a _doorstep._ ”

“The name's Moneypenny.” She says, and she holds out her hand, and although her fingers are manicured, her hand isn't soft when he shakes it. They're calloused, made for working-

“Do you carry a Beretta as well?” Q asks quietly, and he's not quite sure if it's a joke or not. Moneypenny, to her credit, laughs.

“No. They're-”

“Not exactly standard issue. Yes, he said.” Q says weakly, and dimly he realizes that he is wearing a jumper over long pyjamas and slippers, and that there is a _woman_ on his doorstep who is- _Christ._ “So when he says- he's- he's not just your errant occasionally-stalker boyfriend, he's actually...?”

“MI6, yeah.” Moneypenny murmurs, and she pushes him back into the room, kicking the door shut behind them. “And, thing is, that's classified.”

“Not my fault.” Q says immediately, quite unwilling to take the fall (or the bullet) for Bond's stupidity.

“No.” She agrees. “But he's picked you out all the same, apparently. Sorry about that, he can be quite, ah, intense.”

“A flair for dramatics as well, I've noticed.” Q murmurs, and if it comes out softer than he'd intended Moneypenny doesn't comment on it. She just offers a small smile, apparently understanding, and, more importantly, doesn't put the muzzle of a gun to his mouth and pull the trigger. “Would you like a cup of tea, Miss Moneypenny?”

“Yeah, Q.” She says, and she gives him a grin that doesn't disarm him too awfully. “I'll have a cup of tea. Give me that queen mug and I'll smash it up, though.”

“You can have Diana.” Q speaks dryly, and she laughs, but follows him into the kitchen. “So, MI6- you're actually- do _you_ have a badge?”

“No. But I do have to take you in.” Q freezes beside the kettle, glancing at her.

“Take- take me in?” He repeats, and she nods, thick hair bobbing with the action. He swallows, and he wonders if this is what he's going to finally go away for – certainly, he'd always considered absently the idea of prison, and sentencing and such as a whole, but for _Christ's_ sake-

“We're not arresting you.” Moneypenny says simply, and Q becomes rather suddenly aware that he'd begun to go pale at the very thought. His cheeks feel cold. _He_ feels cold. “Just taking you in. Getting your fingerprints, noting your name and info, et cetera...” She lets her voice trail off, light, bouncing back and forth on her heels somewhat.

“But I-”

“ _Technically,_ ” Moneypenny says, and she speaks in some sort of implicitly laden tone as she takes the mug of tea from him. She spares Diana's smiling face not a glance, keeping her eyes firmly on the hacker's face. “You're on permissions.” Q blinks at her, having _no_ idea what “permissions” was meant to refer to. “Not to leave the country, or travel, really. Stay in sight. Your work, eh, continue with it.”

“But not with Vesper.” Q says, and she gives him a sharp look, brow furrowing.

“What do you know about Vesper?” She asks, and it's said with such a severity that Q is slightly uncertain how to respond.

“Uh- well, VespaCars, that's the address I've been getting the jobs Bond says not to take any more from. But he calls them Vesper. Just Vesper.” She laughs, and it would be bitter if it didn't have some sort of softer thought running through it.

“Yeah, he would. Don't worry about it.” They sip at their respective mugs in silence; she finishes first, and Diana drops into the sink without ceremony. Q sets his own mug on the side, with a little tea still in it, and he feels apprehension coil in his stomach as he pulls on his coat, moving to follow her out into the hall.

She starts towards the lift, and he stares after her as she moves inside, leaning against the wall. She furrows her brow, regarding him perplexedly, and he considers which is worse: being _in_ the lift, or bearing the thick, heavy humiliation of taking the stairs alone and slowing them both down to do so.

“Q?” Moneypenny asks, and he remains frozen, hovering two metres or so in front of that _horrific_ little box with his hands shoved into his pockets. “You coming?”

“Uh-” Q forces his legs forwards, making himself get into the lift, and he jabs his fingers hard against the G button. “Nothing. Just saw a spider, is all. Not a man for many-legged insects, me.”

“Not insects, technically.” Moneypenny murmurs, and it's in a good-natured tone he imagines is supposed to take him off the thought of spiders entirely, which is does, but only because he is in a little box that is _lurching_ with each floor down. He wonders if it shows on his face how sick he feels; is he green, he wonders? Do people actually _turn_ a little green when sick, or is that just one of those cutesy thoughts?

He glances at the reflection of his own face in the dirtied glass of the lift's mirrored walls, and sees that while he does not look _green_ , he does look somewhat more pale than usual.

Q feels he might get sick, and by the time the lift touches down and the doors open with a metallic shift of old, weathered parts, he takes in a desperate, ragged gasp, stepping immediately from the small prison and leaning on the wall. Taken aback by a sudden and overpowering faintness, he remains there, trying to ignore the dizzying sensation running through his temples.

“Q? Q?” That's her hand on his back, with its perfect fingernails and worked palm, and she mutters, “Oh, why didn't you _tell_ me?” And he stands up straight, heaving in a breath that rattles a little in his chest, but at the least the air doesn't taste _dirty_ on his tongue, like it does in the elevator.

“Sorry.” Q mutters, out of perfunctory habit more than for any other reason. “I'm fine.”

She looks ready, for a moment or two, to argue with him, but then she drops the idea entirely, and he follows her outside. He remembers that he is being taken to a government agency to be registered for- for accidentally attracting the attention of one of their agents? Why are they even treating it this way? Why aren't they disciplining Bond, or disciplining _him_ , or- or writing him a bloody _ticket_?

“Are you getting in the car or what?”

“I'm getting in, I'm getting in.” Q says tiredly, slipping into the passenger seat, and he notes as they drive that he lacks his usual anxiety about being in a car; Moneypenny is one of those drivers that conducts themselves with such a natural grace and confidence that one could imagine they had evolved only to sit behind the wheel, and there are no lurches or sharp bends. It's almost like they glide over the tarmac, and he finds himself relaxing more in the car than he has in a dozen long years.

It's comfortable. Safe. Moneypenny is- Yes, safe. And not in the odd, convoluted fashion of guns and ropes and clever words that Bond is. She's just safe, all through.

It is not Moneypenny that takes Q's fingerprints or writes down his date of birth or brings up documents that _worry_ him with their accuracy and detail; these actions are conducted by a man in a suit that doesn't quite fit him called Tanner.

Tanner is- _cheerful._

Q isn't quite sure why; he certainly doesn't seem _unprofessional_ , as such, but there's a sort of honest cheer about him that doesn't carry the same _grimness_ that it does with Moneypenny and Bond, and it doesn't seem _faked_ at all: he's Head of Staff, apparently, and there's a sort of lightness to him that doesn't really match his gun or the scars on his hands, or the remarks he gets from the agents that pass in the corridor.

It's unnerving. Q likes it, for some reason.

“Hello.” Bond says, and Q stands immediately. Bond shoots a glance in Tanner's direction, to which Tanner looks _completely_ perplexed and perhaps mildly offended. “How long did you stare at him for?” He asks once the both of them are in the hallway, walking down the corridor towards the glass-walled office Q had seen pointed to as “M”'s.

He feels _right_ at home.

“A few minutes. I like him.” Q says in a dry, only partly sarcastic tone.

“Do you indeed?” Bond asks, and then he takes a turning; Q follows him, and they ascend a set of stairs that are also state of the art. Q realizes that, point of truth, he's not actually sure where these offices _are_ , but understands that that's probably the intention.

He leads the younger man into a room, and Q understands it immediately as Moneypenny's office by virtue of the neat and well laid-out décor, and, of course, the neat and well-dressed woman behind the desk.

“Good trip?”

“Oh, the best. I _do_ hope Mr Bond sends me here again.” Q says in a faux-boyish tone, and she snorts while Bond regards him amusedly, sliding to sprawl on an orange chaise longue. Q moves to settle on the matching chair across from him.

“Cup of tea?” Bond asks.

“No, thanks. If you want to take me home, you can wait until I fall asleep naturally, then blindfold me as you like. I'm not taking one of those bloody sleeping tablets again.” There's a pause as Bond looks at him delightedly, until Moneypenny speaks from behind the desk.

“He's smart.” She comments, sounding pleased enough.

“One can hardly expect me to be a _complete_ idiot.” Q returns, leaning back in the chair comfortably, though he keeps his legs together and his hands folded neatly in his lap. “Particularly with how much they affected my _head_ to ache.”

“I'll wait for you to sleep naturally.” Bond says, and when he gets up to make the tea he ensures the kettle and cup are in Q's full view, even as he adds the teabag. No milk, but Q isn't much surprised by that as Bond pushes the cup into his hands.

He takes a sip. “I'm almost surprised you didn't slip one in here anyway.” He says, after a few moments' worth of tasting it on his tongue – Darjeeling. Tolerable.

“You must be joking. Eve would _slaughter_ me if I made you spill a whole mug of tea on her carpet. Wouldn't you?”

“It did take a long time to lay down.” Moneypenny agrees, with a quirk of her lips, and Bond _grins_ , looking self-satisfied. “Given that I made _him_ do it.” Q raises an eyebrow, turning to regard Bond with some surprise.

“I'm a man of _many_ talents.” Bond says breezily, in a contented tone.

“So I see.” is Q's reply, and Moneypenny lets out a quiet tchooking sound, evidently amused. Q finishes his mug, and then he leans forwards, setting it down on the table. He yawns quietly, hiding his mouth behind the back of his hand.

“What if I _gave_ you the pill and you drugged yourself?” Bond suggests, and Q rolls his eyes, looking to Moneypenny.

“Is he always this impatient?” He asks, making the decision to ignore Bond, and she chuckles. She doesn't notice the way Q stretches his body out in his chair, arching his back a little and lengthening his neck; she's focused on her work, of course, but Bond is focused on _him._

He really oughtn't do this.

“Bond is _capable_ of patience, but he vastly prefers the values of instant gratification.” Q glances back to Bond deliberately, but Bond's pupils are undilated, his lips still together; he doesn't seem affected at _all._ Q feels like pouting, bizarrely enough.

“Aren't _you_ going to take any tea, Bond?” Q asks, and very deliberately takes a sip from his mug; Bond's gaze follows the movement of his mouth, and Q delights somewhat in the attention. It is not that Bond seems less dangerous – on the contrary, the man is ever more so. It's just become more _interesting._

“I don't like tea.” Q furrows his brow, looking at Bond in a perplexed fashion. “But you took t-”

“That wasn't about the tea, Q.” Bond says by way of explanation, saying the words with a small shrug of his shoulders; Q raises an eyebrow. That explains why he didn't _drink_ any of it. “You don't seem all that _sleepy.”_ Bond purrs, and then he moves to stand. “Get up: let's go and see Q.”

“W- pardon?” Bond makes a motion for Q to stand, and the younger man does, following the other from Moneypenny's office out into the corridor. Eve gives him a fluid wave of her hand as he goes, and Q does his best to speed his step, following Bond's rapid steps. “Who is it we're going to see?”

“Q.” Bond say airily, and he slips into an office after a few minutes' worth of walking. Q wonders how far the MI6 offices stretch beneath London, but he doubts asking would go down well. “Oh, _Major!”_ Bond calls as the doors open for them, and he gestures for Q to follow him.

There is a man behind a desk in a white lab coat, his lips pressed together as he glances through paperwork. Q is rather _put off_ by the amount of physical paper he's seen in this building; it's not as if it'd be _impossible_ to put computers on a secure network, and anyway, it was all _printed_ from something anyway; it was hardly that more secure.

“Get out, 007.” is the immediate clipped reply, and Q watches him for a few moments, curious. He's an old fellow, and he wears a neat, old-fashioned suit under the coat. Around the office are blueprints, half-finished motherboards and devices, and Q steps away from Bond, moving to a table and looking over it with interest.

“007 is your rank, I suppose?” Q asks, but he doesn't look at Bond as he speaks, more interested in the blueprints for what appears to be an exploding _pen_ of all things. How utterly ridiculous. The old man looks up, wide-eyed, and he stares at Q.

“What in- _Bond!_ ” He barks out the word, and then he stands, making his way forwards and standing across from the agent to point up at him. The height difference between the two isn't terribly extreme, but for some reason it's still dreadfully amusing to see the old man point such an accusing finger at the taller young man. “Do you have _any_ consideration for security?”

“Of course I do.” Bond returns casually. “National security is my job, Q.” Before the _other_ Q can retort, Bond turns to the younger one. “Q, this is Q. For the sake of your sanity, perhaps you might prefer to know him as Major Boothroyd.”

“Is this a _joke_ , 007?”

“Aren't jokes banned from our relationship, sir?” Boothroyd takes in a slow breath, eyes fluttering closed for a moment; Q wonders how many times a day the man has to restrain himself from lashing out at Bond like this.

Boothroyd steps forwards, and he looks at Q for a few moments. Q knows when he's being appraised, and so he straightens his back slightly, meeting the older man's gaze. “Exploding pen seems a _touch_ OTT.” He says smoothly. “And I'd suggest you alter the materials in the shoelaces for garrotting – you could _easily_ utilize the space in the aglets, and with the proper selection it wouldn't even set off a metal detector. Something one _couldn't_ say for the pen.”

Bond is _grinning_ behind Boothroyd, and the Major looks positively _fascinated_ as he regards the hacker; something close to excitement is plain on his features, and Q finds himself a bit surprised that the older man isn't angry with him.

“What's your name, lad?” Boothroyd asks, and Q lets out a quiet _scoff_ of sound.

“None of your bloody business.” Boothroyd's grin widens further.

“Tell me about this idea you've got for the aglets. 007, get out.” Bond's grin fades, and he looks somewhat affronted – no, _protective_ , almost, as he steps forwards.

“I'll do-”

“Bond.” Q says, and Bond recoils slightly, his head tilting as he looks at Q. “I'm fine. Go.” The agent scowls, but he steps back, and he exits the lab. Q glances to the older Q, thoughtful. “Before I do- what _exactly_ is your position here?”

“Quartermaster.” Boothroyd says, and he gestures to the mess of invention and design on the table before them. “I equip the agents.”

\---

Bond cannot listen in on Boothroyd and Q's conversation, and this is somewhat frustrating for him. It figures, of course, that Boothroyd knows precisely where to unhook his system from Bond's clearances, and while Bond could technically get through all the same, he could not do so unnoticed.

God knows how M would punish him for attempting _that._

Not sulking in the least, he returns to Eve's office, and she greets him with a raised eyebrow. “Been dumped?”

“It doesn't happen often.” Bond says, and he doesn't think he'll ever get used to his voice exiting his mouth so automatically. He doesn't _feel_ his throat contract, or his lungs shift, or vibration through his vocal cords, because there aren't any of the latter, and he lacks the sensors for the other two.

“You should recharge.” He lets out a loud, drawn-out sigh, and is frustrated that he can't feel that either.

“Q just got another email from Vesper.” Bond says quietly. “Urgency gone. She's going to trap him somehow.”

“Eventually. But you know how this works: she's biding her time.” Bond lets out a short, irritated sound, drumming his fingers on his own leg; he can feel _that,_ of course. The external sensors are completely up to scratch.

“I should-”

“Trevelyan will be going after her. You know that.” Bond lets out an irritated sound that isn't _so_ far off a growl. “Oh, for God's sake, will you stop _whinging_?” Eve snaps at him, regarding him fiercely for a moment or two. “You _knew_ you wouldn't be immediately cleared for field duty. You _knew_ the risks, and you still signed the bloody form.”

“It wasn't one form.” Bond retorts, even though he knows it's petty. Q gets another email from someone called Jim Keely, and he traces the man's IP as an afterthought, quickly discovering his entire identity as a small-time pot dealer from Kansas. Hacking his girlfriend's _Facebook_. He was hardly the danger _Vesper_ was. “There were hundreds.”

Eve lets out a quiet sigh, and then she looks at him for a few moments. It's not pity, as such – it's too complex a feeling to be called pity. She'd been the one to shoot him, and she'd been the catalyst to get him _into_ this- suit? Could one call it a suit?

It's his _body_.

**– [One of Beili's pieces is intended to go here here.[Open this link in a new tab](http://postimg.org/image/51xikrtml/) if you'd like to see.]**

As he so often does, Bond re-reads his own medical reports as he waits for her to say something, consuming them in half the time it takes for a human to blink an eye; _the procedure has succeeded... transferred living consciousness into digestible computer format... cannot yet complete conversion to android form as production has not yet been finalized..._

“But you _will_ recharge once you've got Q home safely?”

“Of course I will.” Bond says, though he hates it; he has to power _down_ to do that, and the fleeting unconsciousness is terrifying in a way sleep never had been. Complete darkness, complete nothingness, no dreams, no thoughts, no information, no _anything._

Bond is no longer capable of feeling nausea, and yet his mind _lurches_ where his stomach can't. He feels trapped, and overtaxed, and wishes he'd never signed that first _bloody_ piece of paper.

“ _Do_ androids dream of electric sheep?” Eve asks, and she thinks it's funny, and because Bond has no wish to explain his fears, vulnerabilities or worries lest such ideas get back to M, he snorts, and he winks at her.

It's so much easier to _act_ in this body, given that it lacks the capacity to react on instinct and betray him.

“Q is asleep on my sofa.” Bond is walking once the IM comes through; that's something that, bizarrely, he'd gotten used to immediately. Being able to process sixteen different streams of information at once, being able to hold a conversation whilst reading emails whilst reading articles whilst listening in when he oughtn't be listening in because the microphones on Q's laptop can _just_ pick up the moans he makes when he wanks in the shower.

He'd only listened in the once: now if Q starts it up he tunes it out, processing the dullest Wikipedia articles he can to give the other something like privacy. It's not _difficult_ to remember that he's not a human any more, true, but for some reason it's hard to remember boundaries.

He wants to watch Q while he's sleeping, and he wants to _touch_ him, but for Christ's sake, the man had been terrified of him initially, and for good reason; Bond is learning to keep his distance. He just wants and wants for-

What? Sex? Love?

No. It's not those things, else he'd find them with someone else; sex in an android form is an odd affair of bursting colours and disrupted code anyway, and love- Well. That's truly not a thought to be entertained at all.

Intimacy, perhaps. Yes, intimacy is the watchword here, though with Q it's a wish to _consume._ He knows everything about the man there is to know, and he wants to keep probing, wants to know more, but he wishes for it to be more mutual.

Bond remembers reaching out to touch Q's face, consumed with a need to feel the heat and smoothness of the hacker's face under the synthesized flesh of his own fingertips, and only remembering in time to wrench his hand back. Q had looked so _confused_ , so perplexed with his parted lips and raised eyebrows and slightly widened eyes.

Perhaps Bond had been incorrect where he'd thought he'd shucked off bodily weaknesses; Lord knows he lacked some _inhibition._

He hovers in Boothroyd's office, and he looks at Q; the man had fallen asleep on the Quartermaster's couch to the side of the room.

“You knocked him out?” Bond asks, and Boothroyd doesn't even have the grace to look guilty about it.

“I have work to do. A nice young man he is, but I've not got time for him now.” He says airily, moving back to his desk. Bond chuckles, and then he dips, hitching the younger man over his shoulder and carrying him with complete ease. His strength wasn't so _super_ as he'd half-expected – the true value of an android in service was in regards to stamina and pain tolerance, he supposes, given that his focus _is_ espionage – but it has increased with his new form.

Bond doesn't ask as to what the older man used to make the young fellow insensible for the time being, but it doesn't matter much; God knows it was likely incredibly effective. Bond leans and carefully plucks his spectacles from his nose, folding them and dropping them into his jacket; then, he carries Q out to the car, sending a quick email to Moneypenny as he goes.

He is struck by how bizarre it is that he can drive Q home, write a few emails and send them via his own head, and for some reason it makes him feel trapped as opposed to free. He glances to the passenger seat; Q's head is lolled to the side, his hands loosely folded in his lap where Bond had laid them, and the seat belt is awkward across his chest due to the slumped position.

Bond hums, thoughtful, and parks outside the block of flats. It's nearing seven o'clock in the morning now; they'd kept poor Q up _far_ past his usual bedtime, and the idea affects Bond to smirk to himself as he carries Q inside, stepping into the lift and pressing the rusted number for the twelfth floor.

Seventeen floors, the building has, and yet it seems effectively _devoid_ of life at seven in the morning, but Bond is hardly going to make a complaint. Q had selected it, it seems, for the sake of its dilapidated status overall – none of the cameras on his floor work, and nor does the one in the lift.

Not that Q ever _uses_ the lift, of course.

And in regards to his own apartment, well; Bond had placed a few cameras of his own, and mostly microphones about the room to work in conjunction with those in Q's laptop, but all the same, he wishes he could have a wider picture.

And he'd much rather have some of it through the block's own security system as opposed to his own bugs – there were only so many of those devices he could wrangle from Boothroyd, after all.

He enters Q's apartment with his own key, and he locks it behind them, carrying Q into the bedroom and laying him out on the bed. He leaves the younger man be then for the time being, and he draws a notepad and pen from his own pocket, writing a message for him in fluid handwriting.

Bond really ought buy a whiteboard for Q's fridge – it'd make this so much _easier._

 _My advice for next time would be not to trust Boothroyd. He's a clever old coot, you know – and you thought_ _ I _ _would be the one trying to drug you! I'll let you be for the while, as you oughtn't have too bad of a headache._

_Oh, and do take the job from Jim Keely. He seems safe enough._

_Bond_

He sets the note on Q's side table, and here he removes the hacker's glasses from his breast pocket, folding them and putting them atop the piece of paper for Q to pick up when he wakes. And then, of course, he leaves; Bond has a promise to keep to Moneypenny, after all, and he can hardly neglect it.

\---

Q wakes from his sleep blearily, and it is only when he stands from bed to turn on his computers that he realizes the elder Q must have knocked him out; he's still fully dressed, and the stubble that usually graces his face has become a full-on beard. He glances around, barely making out the shape of his glasses on the side table, and puts them on.

He reads through the note, making a clipped sound with his tongue on the roof of his mouth. MI6 may as well just hire him themselves if Bond was going to start dictating which jobs to take and which not to.

He lets out a quiet groan, inwardly cursing Boothroyd for having caught him out – the bastard, if he recalls right, had caught the back of his neck with something that pinpricked the skin. Though, at the least, he has no headache.

He moves to the bathroom, squinting at his reflection in the mirror of the medicine cabinet above the sink, regarding the hair on his face thoughtfully. He looks decent enough with a beard, he thinks – he likes how it suits him, and Christ knows it's cold enough outside to warrant it, but a change might be nice.

He's not been clean-shaven in _ages_ , after all...

Thoughtfully, he crouches and opens the cupboard beneath the sink, taking out shaving cream, a razor, and the electric razor to start the process off. Twenty minutes later he washes the last of it off his cheeks, feeling the skin beneath smooth under his fingers.

And he managed to do it without so much as a _nick_ – better than last time.

Q glances at the clock. Twenty six minutes past three in the afternoon.

Mmm.

Q moves to sit in his room, and then he brings up Keely's commission. He works quickly on that, and then two or three other small jobs, easy things, piece after piece of easy coding that's ever so easy to _lose_ himself in.

Q works non-stop until eight o'clock, and then abruptly he stands from his chair, crossing the room and picking clothes from the back of his wardrobe, the more obtrusive ones he so rarely elects to wear these days; a shower doesn't take him long, and then on come the trousers, the burgundy shirt that hugs tight to his chest, and then a blazer.

No tie, of course: he looks in the mirror in the bathroom, carefully splaying his collar out to ensure his neck was obvious to any glance or gaze.

He'd go out tonight, certainly; Christ know he ought have some time _away_ from thoughts of Bond. He freezes momentarily, wondering as to his _jealousy_ for a second or two, but no, Bond had shown himself to be more rational, now. That would be no worry.

He leaves his apartment, then, moves rapidly down the stairs, and then it's the walk through darkening London streets again; it's been a few months since he's elected to do this. Q's libido isn't an especially strong monster, after all. He has a wank once a week or so, but it's not so often that he can be _bothered_ to go out and meet someone – he's not truly all that social, even for the sake of sex.

And one must admit that the sex tends to be boring anyway, but ah, needs must.

Q enters the first club he knows is the sort he wants, ignoring the _terribly_ garish rainbow hung over the door. He moves to the bar immediately, arches his back as he bends over, and asks for his Sex On The Beach with a shy smile and falsely widened eyes.

It's funny, he thinks, as he takes the glass, that people think hackers must by definition be so socially _inept._ Q could have every man and woman in this _club_ playing Duck Duck Goose around a new set fire if the mood struck him; one ought never undervalue the ability to manipulate.

“Well, _hello_ there.” Q glances up from his cocktail glass, looking at the woman before him with an almost-owlish expression plain on his face. She's attractive, he supposes, with a come-hither gaze, rouged lips, dark hair above her head in a neat and complicated fashion Q would hate to understand.

“With all respect – you are _quite_ gorgeous – but you're not exactly the sort of man I'm looking for tonight.” Q says, politely enough for the words he chooses.

“Isn't he _sweet_?” Another says, and they are side by side – this one has another hair style that looks _completely_ obscene. Christ, how do they _do_ that? Q had once grown his hair to the length of his _jaw_ and had got everything and the cat tangled in it. “My name is Sévérine.”

“Vesper.” supplies the first, and she holds out a right hand with long, manicured nails for Q to shake. Sévérine does much the same with her left, and Q carefully sets his glass on the bar, taking each of their hands and shaking them with uncertainty obvious on his face.

“Vesper.” Q repeats, glancing between them both.

“ _Q._ ” Vesper says. Shit. Oh, _shit._ Shit. Shit, shit, shit. “You've been avoiding me.”

“It's very rude.” Sévérine murmurs in a quiet, pleased purr. Her hand lands gracefully upon Vesper's shoulder, and they lean against each other, very close indeed. “Oh, Q, all we really _want_ from you is a few jobs here and there.”

“That's all.” Vesper agrees, and Q feels a lump tight in his throat, his heart beginning to pound. Good _God_ , how many people's attention is he going to _garner_? Was Bond just the _first_ in a line of mad people?”

“I don't think I'll be doing that.” Q says, and he moves to go past, but twin hands from each of them settle against his chest, and then he feels the cold muzzles of two guns press under his shirt against the skin underneath. Q heaves in a breath through his teeth. “Ah. It would seem I will be.”

“Yes, I think so.” Séverine purrs, and they guide Q outside, into a waiting Lexus with blacked out windows. Q sits stiffly in the middle seat, and he thinks to try and text something to _someone_ , but Vesper holds up his phone when Q reaches into his pocket and finds nothing.

“A pick-pocket, too.” Q says quietly, and he's going to be sick. He's going to be sick, Christ. “How charming.”

“You're pretty.” Vesper murmurs, as the car begins to move, and Q is shaking in his seat, _shaking._

“Not a very _cool_ hacker, is he?” Sévérine comments, pointing to Q's trembling hands, and Q is glad when the Lexus parks; he scrambles out of the car, and then he bends over, retching and vomiting on the ground.

“Oh, _dear._ ” says a man's voice, but Q can't look up; he thinks he might faint, and Christ, _Christ_ , why is this happening to him? “Sévérine, go and run the young thing a bath. Vesper and I shall help him inside.”

Q is weak at the knees as he tries to stumble away from the car, but then the man's hands are on his wrists, and he half-carries the younger man inside, into a house. Q should have been paying attention, should have looked to see where he _was_ , but everything is _spinning_ and he feels out-of-place and sick and unsure.

“Oh, tut tut tut, pretty little mouse away from _home_.” The man croons, and he puts his arm under Q's arms; Q wishes he had the strength and the courage to struggle free.

“I'm not a mouse.” Q says hoarsely as the other man pushes him into a bathroom with a tiled floor and chocolate brown walls; Q looks around at the bright lights with uncertainty, swallowing hard and tasting bile. Sévérine sits on the side of a bath as it fills with water, and Q glances at her uncertainly.

“Rinse your mouth.” Q stumbles towards the sink, filling one of the plastic cups from the side and filling it with water. He rinses his mouth out swiftly enough, and though it takes away the acidic taste, he still feels _awful_. “My name is Raoul. My dear Vesper has been contacting you on my behalf.”

“Lucky me.” Q says hoarsely, and Raoul _smiles_ at him.

“Clothes off, if you please, pretty mouse.”

“I don't please.” Q says, and Raoul gives a low laugh that comes out as harshly as if it were smothered in broken glass before he holds up a pistol and aims it at Q's face.

“But I do.” Q remains frozen for a few seconds, and then he lets his hands go to his shirt. “Of course, was very hard to _find_ you, initially. Truly, you will have to show me how you disguise your addresses and such – it was most interesting to enjoy the chase.” What the Hell is he _talking_ about?

Q puts his shirt and jacket awkwardly on the side of the sink, trying to ignore the way Silva's eyes rove over his chest. He leans down to remove his shoes, then, dropping them aside before wriggling out of his skinny jeans and underwear.

“And your lovely _friend_ , why, who is he?”

“Don't know.” Q mutters, and he hopes and prays the other man doesn't know he's lying. “He's just some _guy_ , some creepy old man that just started _following_ me, tracked me online. A bit like you.”

Raoul lets out a low, wounded sound, and then he clucks his tongue. “So _rude_.” He says. “Come come, pretty mouse, into the bath.” Q is naked, vulnerable, his arms hunched down and his hands clasped loosely over his crotch; surely a bath would be-

Better.

He turns, flinches at the low, pleased sound Raoul makes at the sight of his arse, and slips into the water, doing his best not to let out a sharp, discomfited sound at the extreme heat of it.

“Off you go, Sévérine.” Raoul says with a shooing motion, and he moves forwards, settling himself in her place on the edge of the bath as she goes, closing the door behind her. He wears a cream-coloured suit, expensive-looking but ruffled in places, and he watches Q fascinatedly, looking him up and down. “Do you prefer _Gwyn_?”

“It's Q.” The hacker says softly, meeting the other man's gaze pressing his legs as tightly together as possible in order to stop the other man from staring at his cock. He is scrunched in the bath, unwilling to stretch at all.

“ _Q._ So harsh.” Raoul comments softly, and Q looks away.

“What- what's your name? Not just Raoul.”

“Raoul _Silva._ Given your acquaintance with _MI6,_ you may know me as Tiago Rodriguez.” Q shakes his head minutely, but his stomach sinks dramatically in his belly at the realization that Silva knows of MI6. Shit. _Shit._ “Rings no bells?”

“No.” Q mumbles, and Silva hums. He reaches out and, very tenderly, removes the glasses from Q's face, folding them and putting them into his pocket. Everything too close becomes a little _fuzzy_ , and Q wonders if he's going to be sick again. No, no, he doesn't think so.

“A shame. It is odd, you see, _Q,_ because it was you I selected for a mission of mine. I thought, ah, this is a young mind, fresh and inquisitive, clever; very _good_ in his line of work.” Q doesn't look at the other man's face as he speaks – there's almost an idea that if he doesn't look at Silva he can pretend he's not there, but Christ knows _that_ isn't true. The cold of the room bites into his bare shoulders, but dipping under the water would only further his vulnerability. “MI6 has suddenly developed such a _startlingly_ fabulous security system, constantly changing and impossible to hack into. And, strangely enough, when I set my sights on _you_ , it seemed to extend to your systems also.”

Bond. It must have been Bond, somehow, but how...?

“I don't know.” Q whispers. “I don't know anything about that.” Silva clucks his tongue.

“Not the answer I want to hear, pretty mouse.” He says disapprovingly, and he picks at a sponge and a bottle of body wash, holding both out for Q to take. He hesitates, swallowing, but Silva raises an eyebrow, and then says, “The gun is still in my pocket.”

Q takes the soap and sponge; he watches carefully as Silva removes the gun and sets it on a table to the bath's side.

\---

“Where is he?” Eve asks as Bond moves Q's things in the lab, rifling through the cupboards for the equipment he wants to take with his Berettas.

“Other side of London.” Bond says shortly, because he can feel Q's phone, feel the notifications ping on the device from his email, his Tumblr, from his bloody _Duolingo._ “Extraction.” Everything he can throw _out_ is tracking Q, tracking Silva, tracking Vesper and Sévérine and all the systems any of them have used in the past week.

Eve's hand settles upon Bond's shoulder, and she says, “I'll extract him.” She murmurs the words quietly, as if a soft tone will offer any comfort. “Why don't you go after Silva? Better than you trying to juggle both at once.” Bond's jaw gives a click; to the mechanized and sensitive ear, a metallic twang was added to the sound.

But that wouldn't matter to Eve Moneypenny, so he doesn't mention it.

“Fine.” Bond says, and he stands, turning to go, but Eve puts her hands on his chest, and then reaches into the holsters under his arms, removing each Beretta.

“Standard issue.” Eve says, and she replaces them with two twin Walthers. Bond gives an uneasy little chuckle, and then bows his head. “You're cleared for field duty, right?”

“Yes, though I doubt this was the first job they had in mind.” Bond murmurs, and he gestures for her to follow him out to the car.

\---

Silva, Sévérine and Vesper are gone by the time they reach the mansion. Eve ignores Bond as he runs off, muttering something or other about moving signals and signatures and phones – it's android stuff that Eve won't pretend to comprehend.

All the agents will be offered the contract in a few years, now that it's been shown to work well enough on one of them; she doubts she'll sign it. Oh, she adores MI6, but eternity seems a little too long to pledge herself with them for.

Eve moves carefully into the house; it's an old-fashioned thing, lingering from the Victorian era, and it stands alone with a big garden. It's not a mansion, certainly; three floors only, but without an especially big floor plan, or so it seems.

She listens intently as she moves through the ground floor, searching as she is for Q. Silva had selected the house for its lack of cameras and electronics, so Bond had said in the car, and the only thing he could sense in the house was Q's phone.

She finds it at the foot of the stairs, the screen smashed but the machine working, and she picks it up, dropping it into her pocket as she begins to ascend. As she moves, she keeps her gun put out with her shoulders straight, and then she stops short on the landing.

There is a ragged gasp, and the sound of water shifting.

“Q?”

“Who's that?” That's Q's voice. That's Q. Eve runs to the next door, throwing it open, and then she stops short.

Q is in a bath, his hair soaked around his head; his glasses are on the floor, smashed. The water is a pink she recognizes all too well. Q himself doesn't look so good, his face pallid and his lips slightly parted. Eve wonders when he shaved off all the _beard._

“He cut you?” She asks, and Q slowly nods his head, apparently uncertain about moving. “Stay there for a second.” She holsters her gun and moves out of the room, picking a blanket out of an airing cupboard before moving back to the bathroom again. “What did he do you with your clothes?” She asks quietly.

Q is naked in the tub, and judging by the redness around his eyes and the marks on the side of the tub from his fingernails, Silva had held him under a few times in the hour it'd taken her and Bond to arrive.

“Took them with him.” Q says hoarsely, and she leans down, pulling out the plug and watching the water begin to drain. She very carefully touches the younger man's leg, glancing at the cuts Silva had made on his knees, expression thoughtful. They're small cuts, made-

Made with some of the glass from Q's own spectacles.

“Did he rub salt into these?” Q nods his head, and then he – shakily – moves to stand.

“I am not made for this.” Q says, and she wraps the blanket around his shoulders as he steps onto the tiled floor. “I'm not into _espionage._ I'm not an _agent.”_

“You didn't tell him a thing, did you?” Eve asks, looking at the hacker appraisingly. “Not even when he held you under the water until you choked for air, and pressed salt and soap into the cuts he'd made.”

“Not a thing.” Q says firmly, but the words come awkwardly from his watered throat, and he quavers on his feet, falling forwards; she catches him. “Is Bond going to kill him?”

“Yes.” Eve says. There's no sense lying about it, after all.

“ _Good_.” Q spits out, and she doesn't even feign shock at the bitterness in his tone; Eve supports him out to the car, and she slips into the passenger seat. “Take me to mine first.”

“First?” She queries, glancing at him expectantly as she turns the key in the ignition.

“We _are_ returning to MI6, I presume?” Eve looks at him for a moment or two, and then she chuckles. The laugh, and the accompanying smile, are not things of pleasantry: they're the ones reserved for missions, for coworkers, for _MI6._

“Yeah, we are.” Eve says, and they drive in silence for a few minutes, until she says, “Has he told you what he is?”

“He's a _pillock._ ” Q says, and Eve isn't completely certain whether that's an answer or not. Would Bond have told Q of his new form, that he's an android? Eve isn't completely certain; Bond is ever enigmatic, and never completely predictable. In his new body, with his new _mind_ , predicting his movements if yet more difficult than ever before.

They move up the stairs, and although the floor is cold and dirty, Q doesn't seem to notice it on his bare feet. He is swift enough about pulling on his clothes; jeans, a shirt, a thick jumper, and boots. He moves forwards, then, picks up his laptop and drops it into a bag, lets the charger follow.

Eve watches him as he picks up an external hard drive, and then a USB stick, and then another. Some are hidden – under his mattress, behind a loose piece of wood panelling on the floor, in the wardrobe – and others are scattered on the side or in the sides of the spare hard drives.

“You ready?” Eve asks as he shoulders the bag, and Q shakes his head. He moves past her, into the kitchen, and plucks the Scrabble mug from the cupboard, the one he'd drunk from when she'd been there before.

“Now I am.”

“You're not bringing Diana and Lizzie, too?” Q snorts.

“Let Bond worry about that. Monarchy is more his business.” Q says, and he is standing straighter than usual, stiffer, somehow. It's not professionalism, as such – it's something more than that, something colder.

Eve likes it.

“The clean-shaven look is nice, by the way. It's new.” It makes him look so much more _severe._

“Thank you.” Q says cleanly, and his voice cuts through the air with a knife-like precision. It's _unnerving_ ; Eve is reminded of Bond on the job, as opposed to _off_ the job. “Shall we?” He walks with his head held high down the corridor, and the smile that comes to Eve's face is a genuine one as she moves to follow.

She doubts this sort of sudden resolve could possibly come from anything _like_ a healthy place, but they can think about that in a little while, when Silva no longer poses an immediate threat. For now, it would serve as a coping mechanism for him.

“Where do you think you're going?” comes a woman's voice, and Eve turns sharply. Vesper's bullet hits her in the leg and she lets out a sharp sound, pulling out a gun from her own holster. She sees Q in her periphery and is frozen with the knowledge she can do absolutely nothing to help him: his eyes are wide as Silva grabs him and pulls him back into the elevator.

The Scrabble mug smashes on the floor as the doors close shut.

\---

“You oughtn't have done that.” Q says as drops his bag on the floor. He registers that he doesn't feel anxious, doesn't feel anxious at all; in fact, he doesn't really feel anything except a rather impressive _rush_ through his head. He really does hope he isn't disassociating. “I liked that mug.”

“Oh, pretty mouse, pretty mouse.” Silva coos as he jabs his hand onto the chipped _R_ for roof on the elevator, and he moves closer, his feet sliding across the dirty lift floor. “Such a little, pretty mouse, in a little, little space, with a big, bad _rat_.”

“I'm really getting tired of you.” Q says, and he pulls the pistol from the back of his jeans, holding it up. Silva's eyes widen, and his eyebrows raise.

“Do you know how to use _that,_ pretty mouse?” Silva asks, and he's trying to be mocking even as his fingers move to take it. Q pulls the trigger and the bang rings through his ears; he sees the bullet wrench through Silva's neck in a surreal fashion, and the warm wet on his face is something he's not completely certain how to deal with.

He reaches out to jab the “stop” button on the side panel, and he stumbles out of the elevator; the gun falls out of his hand and onto the floor, and Q registers – in a sort of detached fashion – that his wrist is in agony and he can't feel a thing.

Q falls on the floor on his back, staring up, and when Bond appears above him, clutching at Q's newly bare cheeks and feeling his pulse, Q stares at his mouth as it moves and Q hears _nothing._ It's quite bizarre; all he can hear is a sort of tinny, metallic ring through his ears, and the quiet rush of air.

“I think I've sprained my wrist.” He says, or at least, thinks he says – his mouth moves and he feels vibration in his throat, but he hears nothing at all.

Bond laughs at him, looking utterly incredulous as he stares down at Q.

Q doesn't need to hear him to read the word “ _Idiot._ ” on his lips.

\---

“My head hurts.” Q says with a small frown, adjusting his position in bed. His sheets are too white, and the pillows are too thick; everything smells bloody _clinical_ , and that bloody nurse had confiscated his laptop. His old glasses are on his face, slightly out of prescription and so bloody _heavy_ – and God knows he hates the plastic feeling of the gown around his body.

“So does mine.” Eve Moneypenny retorts, and Q gives her a rueful little grin, one that she returns. _She_ , of course, is out of bed, walking on a crutch for her leg, but with no other issue. Q has to be in for _observation._

If he were going to start bleeding from his ears, he would have by now: Q suspects the real reason is to keep him out of the way while MI6 clean up the evidence of his murder. _Murder._ Hm.

“How are you feeling, then?” Eve asks, and he knows what she's asking even if she doesn't say it explicitly.

“I don't care.” He says simply, reaching out and gingerly touching the back of his head through the bandage – although he'd not noticed at the time, having sprained his wrist, he'd hit the ground rather hard, and the weight of the fall had slammed the back of his head. He only wishes the nurse had shown him the new bruise with the mirror, like he'd asked.

Q gets the feeling that woman doesn't like him much.

“One would think you would, but I don't. It's like nothing's happened, or- no, it did happen. I remember the gun in my hand, remember what he looked like when his throat split open, though it's a little hazy. Not the details, you understand, so much as my actual memory – I was rather high on endorphins and adrenalin at the time, or _something_ like that.” Eve nods her head.

“I killed Bond, you know.” Q turns his head, regarding her quizzically.

“Did you? He's looking alright, for the sake of that.” He quips, and she laughs a little, amused, before she continues her explanation.

“I shot him with a sniper, whilst he was fighting a Frenchman on a moving train. Missed the Frenchman, hit Bond instead. The way he fell – it was off a bridge, and he went down way slower than you'd think.” Q nods his head. “They had to drag him out of the water.”

“And what happened then?” Eve gives a little smile, a small one, a secretive one.

“Bond will explain, I think, once you're back in MI6.” Q frowns at her.

“But-”

“Silva couldn't trace you at your old address. Apparently he tried once to follow you home, by getting you to pick up money from this old building-”

“In Hackney.” Q says almost dreamily; it feels as if a puzzle piece has fallen into place. “Bond was there.” Eve nods her head.

“Therein laid the issue. Bond killed the man Silva had hired to follow you back, and he kept disposing of the people Silva sent after you. When you went out that night, Bond didn't go, because he thought you were going out to get laid.” Q lets out a rueful sigh.

“I was, at that.” He says in a blasé, slightly resigned fashion, and she laughs at him.

“You're like him, you know.” She says, and she looks surprised as she looks at him – surprised, and fond. Q rather does _like_ this woman, he thinks. Eve Moneypenny, spy extraordinaire.

“Bond? Tosh.” Q says disapprovingly, and waves his hand. “Keep going.”

“Well, once he realized where you were – trackers in your phone-”

“Of course.” Q says dryly.

“We drove out. Silva knew we'd be coming, so he engineered it so that they'd get out at the last minute, leaving you inside. He wagered on Bond coming alone, so that _you'd_ make your way back to your own place. Vesper was still in the house, up in the attic, and I was a bit too distracted to look for cars following us.”

“Well, I do _have_ that effect whilst naked-”

“Shut _up_ , Q.” Moneypenny says, and he grins at her, leaning back on his pillows. He's so _tired_ , Christ, why is he so bloody tired? He hasn't _done_ anything for sixteen hours. “She sent word to Silva and Sévérine, who followed up. Bond was in pursuit, obviously, but not fast enough, and then...” She waves her hands dismissively; both of them knew what happened after that.

She leans back in her seat, crossing her arms over her chest, and then says, tone burning with some sort of admiration, “I didn't notice you picked up the gun.”

“When you turned your back on me, as I got out of the bath. He'd left it on the floor – God knows why. Maybe he hoped I'd shoot whoever came to rescue me.” He lets out a quiet hum, his good hand playing with the sheets; his bad one lies to the side, unmoving. It still aches: bloody recoil. “Quite right, of course, to try and find me. You can hardly kidnap a hacker without the hacker's equipment.”

Eve doesn't say anything for a little while, and they sit in silence. He thinks for a little while; he remembers Bond picking him up carefully, cradling him as if he were something fragile; Silva's body had been on the ground, and the elevator had been _soaked_ with blood. Perhaps it might get cleaned this year after all.

Neither Sévérine nor Vesper had been caught, to Q's awareness; he doesn't mind so much. They'd not done him nearly so much harm as Silva had. Q realizes, after a few moments' silent pause, that he wants to smoke a cigarette. He's never wanted for a cigarette before.

“They'll discharge you into my custody if I ask, you know.” Eve says to break the quiet between them, and Q looks at her, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh? And what then, pray, dear Moneypenny?”

She grins at him.

\---

“An _android_.” Q says, and he sits on Boothroyd's desk with his legs dangling down, looking up at Bond's schematics where they're projected up on the wall. He takes a sip from his mug; a new Scrabble mug, on MI6's dime, so Bond had said with a sort of self-satisfied grin. “Fascinating.”

“Oh, do you think so, Mr Spock?” Bond asks with a raised eyebrow; it's easy to tease Q when they're like this.

“Mmm.” Q nods. “Though I imagine they could have selected a better agent.” Bond frowns at him, reaches out, and flicks his cast. Q lets out a sharp, pained sound, and affects Bond with a glare. “Are you a _child_?” Bond does _enjoy_ this, does enjoy this little sharp exchange they can so easily settle into.

“No, I'm an android, as we've established.” Bond says, and then there is a short pause before he says, with something like hesitance, “It's why I struggle somewhat. With the- _touching_. Boundaries, I mean. My mind was held in limbo, spread across systems, for _years._ The need for human contact is automatic, even in this.” It's odd being honest with someone. Particularly Q.

“Come now, it's not like you don't _feel_ anything.” Q murmurs, and he reaches out, his good hand sliding over Bond's neck, his thumb playing over the other's jaw: it feels good, it feels _good._ “Come closer.” Bond's lip twitches, and he steps closer, letting Q hook one of his legs around the other man's, pulling him right close in order to adjust his lapels.

“I feel like you're going to do your best to take advantage of my robotic endurance.” Bond murmurs quietly, and his excitement he hides perfectly.

“What sort of technophile would I be if I didn't, Bond?” God, that sends electric (ha!) thrills through him.

“Ahem.” Q lets his leg come away from Bond's, and he turns to look at Mallory where he stands in the doorway. _M._

“Sir.” Bond says in a light, amused and teasing tone. Q just nods his head.

“I've come, Q, to offer you a position.” Mallory says quietly. “Boothroyd has been hankering after retirement for some time now-”

“How old _is_ that dinosaur?” Bond quips: Q elbows the android in the side, and the older man chuckles to himself; he does enjoy being so irritating.

“And he would like to groom you to take his position.” Mallory finishes, affecting Bond with an irritated glance. He does enjoy getting on people's _nerves._

“What sort of hierarchy is that?” Q asks, raising an eyebrow. “Surely you would have selected one of those agents working in the department, previously?” Q looks as if he's considering it very carefully, and Bond's lips twitch at the idea of having a completely new – and far sexier – quartermaster to frustrate.

“No.” M says cleanly. “We would have brought in an outsider, regardless. You are well-versed in programming languages, have appropriate experience with hostile agents, and you can put up with the _idiocy_ of some of our agents.” Q smirks as he glances at Bond's offended expression. “And Major Boothroyd says you've a good understanding of the sort of engineering MI6 goes in for.”

“And if I refuse the position?” Q asks, and Bond wonders how long the prison sentence would be – and where, indeed, it would be served. Somewhere terrible, no doubt. Not so much for his _crimes_ – the hacking wasn't actually so awful. It's more the worry as to what the man now _knows._

“Ooh, terribly bad idea.” Bond says quietly, and he does his best to look _somewhat_ serious. “I wouldn't recommend trying to do that.”

M smiles in a sort of cold fashion, silently agreeing with Bond.

“Very well.” Q says, apparently not at all perturbed by their silent threats. “Though I shan't stand for the department looking like this. It's like living in the dark ages.” M's lips twitch into a sort of smirk, and he bows his head in a polite fashion.

“Clear it with Q, Q. Not me.” He exits in a neat fashion, and Q glances to Bond with a little grin.

“Care to make me a cup of tea, Bond?”

“Oh, you're _milking_ that wrist.” Bond tuts at him, and Q shrugs.

“I think I've got the right to.” Q says lightly, and he watches as Bond steps away, flicking the switch on the kettle. There's a short pause, a silence that becomes so close to sombre that Bond is discomfited, and then he asks in a quiet voice, “Does it get easier?”

“Does what get easier?” Bond asks, turning to look at the younger man with a thoughtful expression. He thinks he knows what Q is going to say before he says it.

“The whole- _killing_ thing.” Q says vaguely, with a wave of the hand that isn't in a fabric brace.

“Did you find it hard?” Bond asks, replaying the video feed from the elevator in his head, of Q pulling the gun from the back of his jeans and shooting Silva through, of how easy it had looked for him, even with the recoil from the gun that had, apparently, sprained his wrist. “Killing Silva?”

“No.” Q confesses. “No, I didn't. But I certainly wasn't myself at the time – I was too hopped up on adrenalin, I should think.”

Bond considers telling him the truth. He considers saying, no, it gets harder, and harder, until you don't feel like you've got a soul any more, until the only way you can sleep is with alcohol and sex and the _work_ , until you become such a disaffected idiot you sign a contract that says For Queen And Country you'll let them put your mind in a robot body.

“Yes.” Bond says, and he lies as cleanly as he ever had whilst alive. “Particularly when you've learned to shoot a gun properly.” Q gives a little laugh, sitting back in his seat. “Do you feel guilty?”

“No.” Q says, sounding slightly perplexed. “No, I don't. I thought I would. But all I can think about is that he kept calling me _pretty mouse._ He _stalked_ me for a job, and then he cut me, rubbed salt in my wounds, kept forcing my head under the water so that I thought I was going to drown...” Q trails off, waving his hands in a dismissive fashion, half-thoughtful. “I thought I'd feel guilty, but I don't at all.”

Bond smiles at him, and Q looks somewhat _perplexed_ at the expression. “That's good.” Bond says simply, and then he adds, by way of explanation, “It means you're coping. It means you'll survive the job.”

“Hm.” Q hums, and then he looks thoughtfully around the office that isn't yet his – Major Boothroyd is in a meeting with some of the other 00s and Moneypenny on the floor below. “Not an _awful_ position I'm in now...” He says in a light tone; Q takes a sip of the tea when Bond hands it to him. “Alright. Yes.”

Bond watches Q for a moment or two, and he considers what it will be like to hear this man snarking in his ears on missions, this man creating ridiculous tech for him to utilize, this man performing his _repairs._

“Q,” Bond says in an affectionate fashion. “Would you care to come out for lunch?”

“Can you taste what you eat?” Q asks suddenly, and Bond nods his head.

“Not the way I used to.” Bond says. “But yes. I.. _. enjoy_ eating.” He murmurs, tone laden with a comfortable innuendo. Q pulls himself to stand, and he leaves his mug on Boothroyd's desk as if it's meant to be there.

Q holds out his hand for Bond to take, and Bond does. Q has done it for his benefit more than Q's own, Bond realizes, but he doesn't complain about it when the hacker's fingers are warm against his own – he appreciates it, in all truth.

“How do you feel about sushi?” Bond asks, and Q nods his head.

“Alright.” Q murmurs. “Let's go.”

When Bond stands this close to the other man, he can feel his heart beat through his hand, _hear_ his heartbeat if he zeroes in on the rhythm. Absently, he wonders if Q's hearing had been permanently affected when he'd shot a bullet from the barrel of that pistol in such a small and confined space.

He doesn't ask.

They'll have time for Bond to ask questions like that, really.

“Well.” Q says in a light, pleasant tone. “I suppose ahead of me is a rather promising career in espionage.”

“Yes, Q.” Bond agrees in an equally light, good-natured tone. “I suppose there is.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic can also be found [ on Tumblr ](http://dictionarywrites.tumblr.com/post/104339748638/title-a-promising-career-in-espionage), and please, please, I cannot stress this enough: go and send beili some love for her utterly tremendous art! I'm so lucky to have been paired with her, and each of the pieces she created are beautiful! Remember to send her kudos and comments as well!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [light-headed](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2754104) by [beili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili)
  * [interface](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2754188) by [beili](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beili/pseuds/beili)




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